The Butterflies and the Bees
by Yma
Summary: Young Vash and Knives ask the Question that every parent dreads to hear... where do babies come from? What will she say? Rating just to be safe. RnR Please!


Bisclaimer: This world belongs no more to me than the butterfly does to the Spider's web. The Spider has merely caught the butterfly but the soul of it, trapped within multicoloured wings and gossamer strands, remains it's own.

Note On Rating: This fic is pretty darn harmless, I'm rating it R only because it's about sex but, to be honest, you'll find more pornographic material in a Sex Ed video than you'll find here.

Enjoy.

The Butterflies and the Bees.

At the tender age of seven months, two weeks and six days the young plant twins, Vash and Knives asked The Question.

It had begun innocently enough. They were in the simulation room, she had been idly platting little Vash's long locks (thinking how the twins really needed a hair cut,) whilst he dozed on the grass besides her. Knives, on the other hand, was running round like a mad thing, taking time to explore his surroundings, peeking under stones and into bushes, finding a myriad of new treasures.

Suddenly, with an ecstatic squeak, she saw him pick something up from a leaf and come dashing towards her.

'Rem!' he called joyfully, 'Rem! Look what I've found! Look!'

She looked down into his tiny, cupped hands and saw, crawling around on his little fingers, a caterpillar.

'I've never seen anything like that before, Rem,' breathed Vash, seemingly as excited as Knives, 'what is it?'

'It's a caterpillar,' explained Rem patiently, 'it's what a butterfly used to be. Caterpillars change into butterflies eventually.'

'Oh!' gasped Vash, 'so that's where Butterflies come from?'

'That's right.'

'But,' asked Knives, his voice taking on that strange, pondering tone that was so much a part of the little boy's personality, 'where did the Caterpillar come from?'

'An egg, Knives.'

'Is that where we came from?'

'Sort of, you came from a Plant. But you've heard that story.'

The twins nodded solemnly, to save on future lies and angst Rem had made sure they were fully aware of their origins.

'But Rem,' said Vash, 'what about you? Where you did you come from?'

'Earth silly, you know that.'

'That's not what he meant,' corrected Knives, 'he meant… where humans _come_ from? Are they caterpillars too? Are they eggs? Where do human babies come from?'

Oh dear thought Rem, her heart sinking rapidly. She'd had a feeling this day might come, but it was so _soon! _Then again, everything was soon with these two, strange little angels. Still, she had promised herself she wouldn't lie to them, she wouldn't hide things. If they asked a question, she would answer it… she just didn't have to give a full answer.

'Well,' she said carefully, 'um… when two humans, a man and a woman, love each other very much, the man enters the woman and puts something very special in her, like a seed. That seed grows in the woman's stomach until it's ready to come out. And when it does it's a baby.'

The twins listened to her explanation open mouthed, their bright eyes wide with astonishment.

'That's very strange,' said Vash at last, 'doesn't it hurt to have something put into you?'

'It can do,' replied Rem, feeling more than a little uncomfortable, 'but as long as it's done right, and both people want it, it's a very nice experience.'

'Like eating?'

'Yes, like eating.'

The two boys looked at each other sceptically, 'humans are weird,' said Knives at last, a note of certainty in his tone. Vash nodded, agreeing with him.

Rem could only laugh, 'yes Knives,' she said, leaning over to take the small boy into a cuddle, 'we are very weird sometimes!'

It was two weeks later; Vash and Knives were walking down the corridors of the SEEDS ship, going to visit Rem in the kitchen. Today she would be teaching them a bit about cooking.

They were just turning a corner when they saw a strange and amazing sight.

It was Rowan and Mary; they were standing in the middle of the hallway, with their lips, their mouths, pressed together! As the boys watched in shocked fascination the two humans parted and they saw Rowan's tongue leaving Mary's mouth. The woman sighed softly, sounding as if she's enjoyed the experience.

Suddenly Rowan's eyes widened, he had spotted the twins.

Mary also turned, wondering what he was looking at, and gasped. Both of them turned a deep shade of red.

'V-V-Vash, Knives,' stuttered Rowan, 'shouldn't you be in the kitchen with Rem?'

The boys, their mouths so wide that their jaws might as well have been touching the floor, glanced at each other once, then ran away. They fled down the corridor towards the Kitchen and Rem, eager to share what they'd witnessed.

'Rem! Rem! Rem!'

Vash's high pitched yells echoed round the kitchen and Rem, a sauce-pan of rice in her hand, turned in alarm. Vash didn't sound overly scared, but he was very excited, she wondered what could have made him so?

No sooner had she turned than the two boys came careening into the kitchen, their faces flushed with exertion.

'Rem!' breathed Knives, his eyes wide with excitement, 'we just saw Rowan and Mary making a baby!'

The saucepan slipped from Rem's suddenly numb fingers, scattering boiling water and rice everywhere.

'What?' she said weakly, heedless of the mess she'd made.

'We saw them making a baby,' reiterated Knives patiently, as if he was suddenly the adult and she the child, 'they were in the hallway. They had their lips locked together and Rowan had his tongue in Mary's mouth. I don't know if he put anything in there, though.'

'Yeah,' agreed Vash, 'but Rem, you were right, it did look a lot like eating! Rem… Rem… are you alright?'

He asked because the woman in question was currently doubled over with laugher. Eventually she righted herself, wiping tears of mirth from her cheeks, 'yes,' she sighed, her voice still shaking with suppressed giggles, 'I'm fine. But I'm afraid you were wrong, they weren't making a baby, they were just kissing. Though it's good to hear that they're finally getting together.'

'But Rem,' whined Vash, 'we saw him enter her, isn't that part of making a baby?'

'It is… in away… kissing sometimes helps the process, because it's a show of affection, but that's not how the seed gets into the woman.'

The twins frowned at this, it made no sense. They both knew that food went into the belly after it was put in the mouth and eaten; so it would make sense that the man's seed got in the same way.

'Well,' said Knives eventually, 'if it doesn't get in through the mouth, how does it enter?'

Rem face turned a deep crimson, just like Rowan and Mary had before in the corridor.

'Um,' she said at last, 'there are other… places.'

Vash sighed in frustration, 'so it isn't kissing, but kissing is part of it; it doesn't get in through the mouth, but the seed still gets into the belly; but we don't even know _how_ the baby gets out! You've not being very clear about this Rem. How are we supposed to find out about this if you don't _tell_ us?'

'Yes,' agreed Knives, 'you're not being clear at all.'

Rem groaned and rubbed the bridge of her nose, resigning herself to her fate. She would just have to tell them the full story. With their boundless curiosity they would find out about it somehow anyway. If they didn't try searching for it on the computers (God forbid) they'd just ask another member of the SEEDS crew. Captain Joey would probably just mumble something and shoo them away, Mary would be far too embarrassed to say a thing, Rowan would probably give a very scientific explanation but would ignore all the emotional aspects of it and she simply dreaded to think what Steve would say. Besides, at the rate these two where growing it wouldn't be that long before they might need this information.

'Alright,' she sighed, 'come with me, I'll take you to the computer rooms, we're going to need diagrams for this.'

'But Rem, what about the cookery?' asked Vash, his mind ever on food.

'We'll do that tomorrow,' replied Rem, 'I want to get this over with. Besides, this will take some time.'

It was many hours later, the various biological and emotional complexities of making a baby, sex itself, and the differences between  men and women in general, had been more or less explained. Both in words and pictures. Rem, satisfied she had done all she could, had put the two boys to bed, leaving them alone in their room to think upon what they'd learned.

'I feel sick,' said Vash a last, holding his stomach.

'Me too,' agreed Knives.

'How do they _do _it?' asked Vash, 'I mean, _how!?_

'I think Rem explained that pretty well.'

'Yeah but… how does it get _in? _You saw the different sizes of everything, the diagrams and stuff. I mean, surely-'

'Vash,' sighed Knives, turning away from him and settling upon his bed, 'for once I really don't want to know.'

'You probably right,' agreed Vash, also lying down, putting his arms behind his head, 'any how, that was really gross. Who knew women would be so… different.'

'I always knew they were a bit weird,' muttered Knives, a little smugly, 'this just proves it. I don't think it's surprising they're as normal as they are, with all that pain going on, and all that blood… it makes sense they'd be so strange.'

'They must be very brave,' muttered Vash, 'to go through all that for a baby.'

'Yeah… but remember what Rem said, sometimes they do it because it's fun.'

'How could _that _be fun?'

'Beats me.'

There was silence for a while, both boys having run out of anything to say.

It was Vash, of course, who broke the silence.

'Knives?'

'Yeah?'

'Do you think… do you think we're ever going to have to… you know… have sex?'

'I don't think so,' muttered Knives, 'not unless we want to.'

'I don't think I'll _ever _want to do that!'

'Me either,' agreed his brother, 'but we might have to if we want to reproduce.'

He spoke the last word with some relish, he'd only learned it today and he rather liked the complexity of it. Knives always liked long words, liked rolling them off his tongue.

Vash blinked for a moment, trying to remember what the word meant, then he nodded, 'yeah,' he said at last, 'maybe if I wanted to have a baby… if I could find a nice girl… but still…'

Knives sighed and turned over in his bed, 'don't worry too much about it, Vash. We might not even have to go through it, we're plants remember. Things might work differently for us.'

'Maybe…' said Vash, but he sounded unconvinced, 'I hope so.'

'Yeah,' yawned Knives, weariness descending upon him, 'sex is gross.'

'Icky and yucky,' muttered Vash sleepily, his own eyelids heavily, 'I'm never going to have it! In fact, I'm never going to even kiss a girl!'

'No, girls are gross too… gotta be… all those fluids…'

'Yeah… Knives?'

'Mmmm?'

'Why do you think they do it? Humans… I mean. Why do they have babes and sex and stuff, there must be a better way now.'

'I dunno, humans a crazy sometimes Vash, they are…'

Knives's voice trailed away as sleep finally claimed him.

Vash yawned and stretched, his eyelids finally closing, his last thoughts before joining his brother in sleep was that Knives was right. Humans were crazy.

Anything that made babies like that _had _to be insane.

The End.

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